PEOPLE DISAPPEARED FROM MY WORLD FOR ONLY TWO REASONS. THEY BETRAYED ME. OR THEY WERE AFRAID OF ME.

The drive back into the heart of the city was a suffocating blur of flashing streetlights and silence.

I sat in the back of the SUV, staring at the silver compass in my hand. Tessa wasn’t fleeing. She was hunting. She had spent four years silently watching me, learning my security protocols, memorizing my enemies, absorbing my ruthless tactics.

I had hired a maid. I had accidentally trained an operative.

“Boss,” Brendan called from the front seat, a headset pressed to his ear. “We found an address. Property records show a shell company tied to Silas Walker just bought a derelict brownstone in the South End. Nobody lives there, but the electricity spiked yesterday.”

“Take us there.”

When we arrived, the brownstone looked like a rotting tooth in an otherwise gentrified neighborhood. Windows boarded up. No porch lights.

“I go in first,” I said.

Brendan opened his mouth to argue, saw my eyes, and closed it. He handed me my piece. I checked the chamber, slid it into my shoulder holster, and kicked the rusted side door off its hinges.

The smell of damp drywall and old cigarettes hit me instantly.

I moved through the dark hallway, my men fanning out behind me. We cleared the kitchen. Empty. The living room. Empty.

Then we reached the upstairs bedroom.

The door was ajar. I pushed it open with my foot.

The room was wrecked. A heavy wooden chair was shattered against the wall. A mattress was flipped over. Blood—fresh and bright red—was smeared across the cracked mirror above the dresser.

“Tessa,” I whispered, the name tearing out of my throat.

“Boss, over here,” Brendan said quietly.

He was kneeling near the closet. I walked over. Tucked into the far corner, hidden beneath a pile of moldy blankets, was a small, blue winter coat. A child’s coat.

I picked it up. It was terrifyingly light.

And then I saw it. Pinned to the inside collar of the boy’s coat was a small, hand-drawn picture. Crayon on lined notebook paper.

It was a drawing of a man with dark hair, standing in front of a big house with glowing windows. Beside the man was a little boy.

Written in clumsy, childish block letters at the top were two words: MY DAD.

My heart seized.

I stared at the drawing. I stared at the man with the dark hair. It wasn’t Elias. Elias had blonde hair. It wasn’t Silas.

The man in the drawing had a distinct silver compass painted in his hand.

I stumbled backward, hitting the doorframe. The air left my lungs in a violent rush.

“Brendan,” I choked out, holding up the drawing.

Brendan looked at it. His eyes widened in shock.

Four years. Tessa had been in my house for four years. Six years ago, I had spent a lost, grief-stricken weekend in a hotel in Chicago on the anniversary of Elias’s death. I had met a quiet, beautiful woman in the hotel bar. We hadn't exchanged last names. She had slipped out before dawn.

I looked down at the boy's coat.

Elias’s daughter hadn’t just come to my house to watch me.

She had come to introduce me to my son.

And now Silas had them both.

Before I could speak, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.

Unknown number.